VintAge68 Blog

On last year's GOTYs usually follows the list with the new one's most anticipated video games, which again may be on the next GOTY list―or not. On the other hand the current year's “biggest” releases might not always be those one most gets hyped for, so in the following you'll find the games that caught my special interest (< E3), but certainly not allof 2015's foreseeable AAA games. As for last year, it is above all PS4, Wii U, and PC (Vita, Ouya) games that are on my wishlist, and no more (new) PS3/X360 releases; also PC versions tend to be the cheapest option, and my HDD is far from being full.

Top 13:

Evolve (PC/PS4) (February)

The Order: 1886(PS4) (February)

Battlefield Hardline (PC/PS4) (March)

Bloodborne (PS4) (March)

Until Dawn (PS4) (Summer)

The Legend of Zelda (Wii U) (Q3)

Xenoblade Chronicles X (Wii U) (Q3/4)

Uncharted 4: A Thief's End (PS4) (Q3/4)

Homefront: The Revolution (PC/PS4) (Q3/4)

The Division (PS4) (Q3/4)

Star Wars: Battlefront (PC/PS4) (Q3/4)

Final Fantasy XV (PS4) (Q3/4)

Quantum Break (if only it was for PC) (Q3/4)

Indies:

Human Element (PS4/Wii U)

No Man's Sky (PC/PS4)

Rime (PS4)

Wild (PS4)

The Tomorrow Children (PS4)

Ian's Eyes (Ouya/PC)

PS Vita:

Phantasy Star Nova

Gravity Rush 2

Grim Fandango: Remastered

Broken Age: The Complete Adventure

Perhaps also:

Mighty No. 9 (Wii U)

Life is Strange (PC/PS4)

Just Cause 3 (PC/PS4)

Yakuza Zero (PS4)

Star Fox (Wii U)

Mad Max (PC/PS4)

Dead Island 2 (PC/PS4)

Alienation (PS4)

Magicka 2 (PS4)

Rainbow Six: Siege (PC/PS4)

Carmageddon Reincarnation (PC/PS4)

Need for Speed 2015 (PC/PS4)

To be released this year?

Mass Effect 4

Mirror's Edge 2

Beyond Good and Evil 2

Cyberpunk 2077

Titanfall 2

Destiny 2

Half Life 3

...

In any case, thanks for reading: please feel free to comment whether you like my selection and what interests yourself most in 2015 video game-wise.

Today offers a good occasion for posting my own GOTY list since this is my 4th birthday on GameSpot, though to be correct, I've been following the site already more than half a year before finally becoming a registered subscriber at the end of 2010.

Game release-wise 2014 hasn't been disappointing for me, and quite a bunch of games I've been anticipating—Titanfall, inFamous: Second Son, Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2, Destiny, Dragon Age: Inquisition, Bayonetta 2, The Vanishing of Ethan Carter, Valiant Hearts—did completely meet my expectations. A few did not comply (Thief) or haven't been finished yet (Alien Isolation, The Evil Within, Far Cry 4) whereas others I hadn't planned into playing—Wolfenstein The New Order, The Wolf Among Us, Child of Light—have been a positive surprise. Again others have been postponed to 2015, so let's see what the upcoming year will bring about (maybe stuff for another blog).

Overall – Well, I didn't succumb to any anti-hype hipsterist temptation to vote the most anti-Destiny Game of the Year. To me Destiny (PS4)* deserves the GOTY for being a phenomenon rather than only a game, with thousands of players letting themselves getting conditioned by the game's weekly schedules, namely Tuesdays and Fridays, not to mention DLCs, patches, and temporary stoppages... Also, its being hyped doesn't prevent Destiny from being a truly addictive game featuring well-functioning gameplay and outstanding graphics, and I don't really regret the 800+ hours put into upleveling my three characters and many more favorite weapons so far.

Action/Adventure: inFamous: Second Son (PS4) – I thoroughly enjoyed rushing through visually splendid Seattle with Delsin Rowe's thoroughly enjoyable superpowers. In gameplay and context Second Son reminded me positively of two of my favoritest games, Jet Set Radio Future and The Saboteur, and it is notably better than 2012's Prototype 2.

Runners-up: Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2 (PC), Bayonetta 2 (Wii U)

Shooter: Titanfall (PC) – I eventually decided in favor of Titanfall for its Titan mechs' contributing to making it a nicely original online shooter game, and in spite of the new Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare's outstanding technical perks.

Role-Playing Game: Dragon Age: Inquisition (PS4) – Admittedly, I am a fan of BioWare's style, from KOTOR to SWTOR, and played also the previous two Dragon Age games so I am quite a connoisseur of the story background (and even recall Corypheus from DA2's Legacy DLC). Moreover, Inquisition does take the best of Origins and DA2 to provide vast, explorable maps and manageable squad-wielding gameplay.

Racing: Mario Kart 8 (Wii U) – Isn't it the only racing game not having known server issues (Driveclub, The Crew...) this year? There is pretty much everything to like of Mario Kart 8, the fancy circuits, the familiar characters, the car customizations (including the free Mercedes DLC), the co-op fun...

Fighting: would beSuper Smash Bros. (Wii U) if I had gotten it already (though I bought already some amiibos); it will surely be one of my next games to purchase for the Wii U, though. On the other hand I did play (and like) UFC (PS4) but decided to rather not nominate any fighting game this year.

Platforming: Shovel Knight (Wii U) – Cute story and pixelated, retro-style graphics plus challenging levels with achievable difficulty. What makes Shovel Knight “retro” is also the fact that no tutorials or hint bubbles help playing the game, but as likewise for the shovel-wielding protagonist, the tools are limited and their use relies on the player's own inventiveness.

Runner-up: Valiant Hearts: The Great War (PC)

Indie: The Vanishing of Ethan Carter (PC) – Taking place in a splendid autumnal forest landscape to the tunes of atmospheric ambient music while covering a pastoral psycho-horror story that skilfully generates a sensation of blankness which its puzzles, once resolved, don't really attempt filling out, this is a game for curious, melancholic people. "Faggot" Ethan Carter could have been the teenage Alan Wake.

Runner-up: Shovel Knight (Wii U)

Graphics:Castlevania: Lords of Shadows 2 (PC) – There have been quite a lot of contenders for visual splendidness this year, including Destiny, inFamous: Second Son, Dragon Age: Inquisition, yet I decided in favor of Castlevania: Lords of Shadows 2 whose PC version sports nearly next-gen graphics. Not only as regards the cinematic takes on action and drama scenes, but also the environments juxtaposing Gothic and modern architecture as well as the textures (metal, stone, bone, wood, skin) are modeled stunningly realistically and with cherished detail.

Runner-up: The Vanishing of Ethan Carter (PC)

Soundtrack: Shovel Knight (by Jake Kaufman), cf. http://virt.bandcamp.com/album/shovel-knight-original-soundtrack – This sort of "electro-baroque" music making use of several ancient musical forms (Passacaglia, Tarantella, Bourrée, Waltz) a bit à la Neo-Couperin really made my summer; while not "atmospheric" at all the individual tracks that can be collected as hidden music sheets in the game itself fit also extraordinarily well to the game's different quest levels.

So I bought a 1st-gen OUYA console recently and wanted to share my first impressions here:

My global opinion regarding this small, handy cube is quite positive, certainly more than originally thought. Very much in its favor, the Ouya:

has an appealing, snug design

has a surprisingly good graphics display thanks to HDMI

is affordable and user-friendly, also due to its Android-based system

The (wireless) gamepad feels good both by its weight and to the palms thanks to the metal plates which cover the left and right handle where the two AA batteries are put. The color buttons display the four letters that gave the Ouya its name: O – U – Y – A, in addition to L1/R1, L2/R2, and L3/R3. Up to four gamepads can be connected at once, for what PS3 controllers can be used alternatively.

The User Interface is a bit similar to Google Play on Android; until now all the games are free for download and trial, which in future is being left to publishers/developers. The games and applications aren't too big in size, mostly just some hundred MB, so that in addition to the 8 GB (~ 6 GB) and soon 16 GB internal storage, they can easily be downloaded to and played off any external USB stick (using either LAN / WiFi).

The Ouya's main menu has four submenus:

PLAY – the downloaded Games Library

DISCOVER – the Games & Apps Store

MAKE – the domain for developers of builds / software

MANAGE – Ouya account, preferences, etc.

The System Menu (Y) furthermore permits to manage the console's contents and internal/external storage units in Android-like manner. As to video games, the Discover menu distinguishes between different Genres from “A” like Adventure, App, Arcade/Pinball, over Dual Stick, Kids List, Multiplayer, Retro, to “S” like Short on Time?, SIM/Strategy, Sports..., but of course includes also the requisite Fighting, Platforming, Racing, and Role-Playing games.

Alongside video games, different applications can be downloaded, including TwitchTV, XBMC, Vimeo, TuneIn Radio, VLC Media Player, or Crunchyroll. With this big assortment, it is convenient that discarded Games & Apps can also be "buried" in order to hide them in the menus.

Offering games also in their Alpha or Beta version right now the Ouya is mainly an Indie domain and seems still less attractive to big publishers, with the notable exception of Final Fantasy III (Square Enix) and Sonic the Hedgehog 4 Episode I (SEGA) which both have been ported to Android already before. Numerous other games are being offered as well via Steam or PlayStation Store, like The Cave, Sine Mora, TowerFall, or A Space Shooter for 2 Bucks. It is also true that many of the available games have been released for iOS / Android and include a similar collection of imitative titles such as Oh My Goat, Flappy Plane, Voxy Bird, Minimon, Stupid Zombies 2, Fields of Battle, Grand Truckismo, but there are also various genuine Ouya exclusives being offered and developed.

Another user-friendly aspect is that after trying out a game every user is asked to leave a rating between 1 and 5 stars, which together with the number of votes gives an orientation about the quality of every game and general user satisfaction.

So following the five-stars rating as well as my personal preferences, the games I--more seriously, after a number of trials--selected to be played on the Ouya so far are:

TRPG: Final Fantasy III (SNES, iOS, AND)

RPG: Ravensword: Shadowlands (iOS, AND)

FPS: Overkill 2 (iOS, AND)

Survival Arcade shooter: Killing Floor: Calamity (OUYA)

Platforming Action-adventure: Another World (Atari/Amiga, 1991)

Retro-style Beat 'em up: Fist Puncher (PC)

Psycho Horror: Neverending Nightmares (PC, beta – yet to be released in its final version)

So to sum it up I can only say that my however short experience is positive and satisfying as to this still new gaming console, and I really hope more young as well as advanced developers will be offering their games on the Ouya in near future.

Alas, the new year is just one week old and already does one make projections regarding the games (to be) published this year, in spite of pending backlogs and uncertain release dates. Moreover, the anticipated games list tends to grow dramatically after the annual E3 event.

Another unknown comes from the game prices which are considerably higher for the new next-gen releases, and as neo-PS4 and Wii U owner I have the desire to buy as many of the new games as possible for these two platforms, of course.

Consequently, this is an only provisional list of all video games that I have in mind to acquire (or at least rent, until the price drops) and play during the year, in the order of their presumable release dates:

The problem of uncertain release dates, as handled by GameSpot

Don't Starve -- 01/2014 (PS4)

Dragon Ball Z: Battle Of Z -- 01/24/2014 (PS3/PSV)

Tomb Raider Definitive -- 01/31/2014 (PS4)

Octodad -- 02/2014 (PS4)

Thief -- 02/2014 (PS3/PS4)

Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII -- 02/14/2014 (X360)

Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare -- 02/20/2014 (X360)

Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2 -- 02/27/2014 (PS3)

Yaiba Ninja Gaiden Z -- 02/28/2014 (PS3)

Bravely Default -- 02/28/2014 (3DS)

The Evil Within -- Q1-2/2014 (PC --preordered)

Titanfall -- 03/13/2014 (PC)

Infamous: Second Son -- 03/21/2014 (PS4)

Final Fantasy X/X-2 -- 03/21/2014 (PS3/PSV)

Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn -- April/2014 (PS4, from the PS3 version)

Watch Dogs -- Q2/2014 (PC --preordered one year ago!)

Grand Theft Auto V -- Q2/2014 (PC version)

Bayonetta 2 -- Q2/2014 (Wii U)

Mario Kart 8 -- Q2/2014 (Wii U)

Ultimate Fighting Championship -- Q2/2014 (PS4)

Beyond Good and Evil 2 -- Q2/2014 (PC)

Outlast -- Q2-3/2014 (PS4)

Wolfenstein: The New Order -- Q2-3/2014 (PC)

The Crew -- Q2-3/2014 (PS4)

Destiny -- 09/09/2014 (PS4)

Dragon Age: Inquisition -- Q3/2014 (PS4)

The Order: 1886 -- Q3/2014 (PS4)

The Sims 4 -- Q3/2014 (PC)

Final Fantasy XV -- Q3-4/2014 (PS4)

Mirror's Edge 2 -- Q3-4/2014 (PS4)

Rime -- Q3-4/2014 (PS4)

Secret Ponchos -- Q4/2014 (PS4)

Uncharted 4 -- Q4/2014 (PS4)

Tom Clancy's: The Division -- Q4/2014 (PS4)

With unknown release date:

Mad Max (PC)

Carmageddon: Reincarnation (PC/PS4)

X (Wii U)

Shin Megami Tensei x Fire Emblem (Wii U)

Star Wars: Battlefront (PS4)

Homefront 2 (PS4)

Tom Clancy's: Rainbow 6 Patriots (PC)

Shadow of the Beast (PS4)

Deep Down (PS4)

Until Dawn (PS4)

Yakuza Ishin (PS4)

Monster Hunter 4 (3DS)

Cyberpunk 2077 (PC)

Prey 2

Half-Life 3

The Last Guardian

...

In bold the games I have a particular interest for and will certainly acquire. And in order to anticipate questions: no plans so far for MGS Ground Zeroes, Dark Souls II, The Witcher 3, The Elder Scrolls Online--not since I consider them bad, but simply since I have less interest in these games, for whatever reason.

Finally, before this year comes to its end, my own Games of the Year-list which I decided is neither ranked nor distinguished by platform as I consider it inappropriate to establish ranks for games belonging to different categories, and to give platform-related awards to games released for multiple systems.

So this is the list of my personal favorites for each category, taking into account (only) the games I've been playing myself during 2013, with a deliberate accent on action games, of course. In brackets the platform(s) on which the game has been played, not necessarily an exclusive one.

Tablet Apps: Heroes of Dragon Age (AND) - based in the familiar Dragon Age ambiance, allowing for tactical squad upgrade choices without forcing purchase

Sequel: Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time (PS3/Vita) - it's so comforting to see Sly, Bentley, and Murray reunited in this long anticipated sequel of the great Trilogy cross-playable on PS3/Vita that one might long for yet another one

Narrative: Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs (Dan Pinchbeck) - by far the most literary of the games I've been playing this year

Music/Soundtrack: ex aequo Remember Me (Olivier Derivière) and Crysis 3 (Borislav Slavov) for being the two most emblematic of this years video game musics I heard, maybe better than their games --in case someone needs to refresh their memory: Crysis 3 | Remember Me

Design originality: Bioshock: Infinite - while I had some problems with both story and gameplay, its original design is probably what most makes this game stand out

Best Female Character - Ellie, The Last of Us (runner-up: Jodie, Beyond: Two Souls) - besides, don't they have something in common?

Best Male Character - Michael De Santa, GTA V (runner-up: Joel, The Last of Us) - besides, don't they have something in common?

Characters, further mention: the Lutece Twins, probably one of the most original ideas in Bioshock: Infinite

First of all: far more visitors than games exposed, of which Sonyoffered the greatest selection on PS3, PS4, and PS Vita, as well as, surprisingly, Nintendo, with WiiU and 3DS, whereas Microsoft, Activision, Electronic Artsfocused mainly on some of their blockbusters, including the popular FIFA 14 being featured not only by its publisher, but also Sony PS4 and MS XB1--much to the delight of the local public.

Since this year I'm lucky to having played both Battlefield 4 and Call of Duty: Ghosts campaigns right at release, I've been focusing more on demos of games upcoming this or early next year:

Octodad - this is the game for you, John, featuring an outlandish story about an Octopus family father, besides PS4 to be published also for PC, Mac, and Linux in 2014 .

Killzone: Shadow Fall - the first AAA shooter title to be released by Sony on PS4 (in addition to BF4, of course), and which I'll hopefully be playing soon on my own PS4.

Knack - an action game featuring sort of a scalable scavenger robot, probably for a younger public with comic-like animations, but quite irresistable through its design and gameplay.

Ryse - the Colosseum combats I played seemed rather like ordinary hack 'n' slash within an extraordinary visual setting, except that the contemporary Roman public does react with respect to the quality of one's combat performance (thus "bored," in my case).

Dead Rising 3 - not played (waiting queue has been too long); I read that the 720p 30fps settings would be rather modest for being an XB1 exclusive, but anyway: I won't buy the new console in order to play this game.

Bayonetta 2 - striking visuals which let forget using a Nintendo platform, and a bit easier in difficulty as the former release, it seems. For me one reason more to get a Wii U as soon as I can afford it (but after the PS4).

Other demos I played have been those of Rain and Beyond (both PS3), which I will be purchasing (probably) still this year, World of Tanks which I don't think is necessary to be played on X360 since the controller settings don't really represent an advantage here (I played it on PC before), as well as some still playable platforming retro games on the Commodore Forever stand...

Forza Motorsport 5 and Gran Turismo 6 - showed off some impressive racing wheels and booths but here too I did abstain from trying it out due to heavy public attendance (a true EA loyal I played the new NFS Rivals demo instead).

The impressive Destiny has been displayed but not playable and also Titanfall been absent, as well as Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2, which is the more surprising as MercurySteam is a developing studio located in Madrid.

Of course I also assisted the Conference-round table table about "Women in the Video Games Industry," though out of solidarity rather since its outcome has hardly been something new to me...

So far a short roundup; I'm really happy that "we" Madrileños have an annual Video Game Expo of our own again but hope that the exposition as well as the international interest will be somewhat greater next year (Madrid really deserves it).

For the second I couldn't find any English links yet (except the name), but no worries, English will certainly be understood (if not spoken) everywhere during the Expo (the English mirror site will be for next year (・_・;) ...

You join Amadeus the Wizard, Pontius the Knight, and Zoya the Thief as one of three Heroes in an animated action-puzzle-platforming adventure set in a fairy tale world.

Well, while I didn' t finish either of those games yet all seem to be working well so far except some problems I have with in-game sound, but which appears to be due to the hardware configuration (I'm using various devices) rather than Steam.

So let's see, quite some changes going on these days, whether for the better or worse is still to be decided.

After playing Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs, sort of an interactive novel following the kafkanian story by U.S. writer Dan Pinchbeck, and with autumn waiting on the doorstep also in sunny Spain, I feel somewhat in a literary mood and thought this might be a good occasion to post some poems for once.

Besides, what else is interesting in Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs--which is exactly what says its title--is that there are no menacing hordes of zombies or aliens but the whole horror happens more or less in the narrator's own head. Sure, there are the pigmen more pitiful than frightful, until close to the end when they are unleashed on the streets where they murder true human beings (some scenes seem to having been cut, though: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-09-27-amnesia-a-machine-for-pigs-writer-describes-disturbing-cut-content).

However, Amnesiais not really a "survival" game, either, since from the beginning one feels that exploring and further descending on the track of the different rare clues, there won't be a positive outcome--unlike most of other horror-themed games where in the end one might finally result victorious against the putrid crowd. What makes one knowingly strive forward to a negative end is yet another question: curiosity, plausibly, albeit fatal.On the other hand the story itself is sufficiently well-written and profound to make one repeatedly stop to re-read the consecutive journal entries and found paper sheets, and just digest. Paintings, toys, tools, looking as if for torture: a game based on suggestions.

Some might remember that I had Amnesia IIon my list of the "most anticipated" games for this year and in fact it turned out better even than that, and also when seeing GameSpot's gameplay demo I thought it might perhaps be a bit tedious but in fact it is not: the tension is so constant and one oneself so focused on the minimal changes in this end of the 19th century "steampunk" environment which allow to finally proceed to the next area, that on never really gets bored.

So finally, and a bit inspired by the above said, here are the poems I wanted to share, most probably already known:

The Moon (by Percy Bysshe Shelley | 1792--1822)

AND, like a dying lady lean and pale,Who totters forth, wrapp'd in a gauzy veil, Out of her chamber, led by the insane And feeble wanderings of her fading brain,The mood arose up in the murky east, A white and shapeless mass.

Art thou pale for weariness Of climbing heaven and gazing on the earth, Wandering companionless Among the stars that have a different birth,And ever changing, like a joyless eye That finds no object worth its constancy?

THERE was a child went forth every day,And the first object he looked upon and received with wonder or pity or love or dread, that object he became,And that object became part of him for the day or a certain part of the day...or for many years or stretching cycles of years.The early lilacs became part of this child,And grass, and white and red morningglories, and white and red clover, and the song of the phoebe-bird,And the March-born lambs, and the sow's pink-faint litter, and the mare's foal, and the cow's calf, and the noisy brood of the barnyard or by the mire of the pondside...and the fish suspending themselves so curiously below there...and the beautiful curious liquid...and the water-plants with their graceful flat heads...all became part of him.[...]

His own parents...he that had propelled the fatherstuff at night, and fathered him...and she that conceived him in her womb and birthed him...they gave this child more of themselves than that,They gave him afterward every day...they and of them became part of him.[...]

Affection that will not be gainsayed...The sense of what is real...the thought if after all it should prove unreal,The doubts of daytime and the doubts of nighttime...the curious whether and how,Whether that which appears so is so...Or is it all flashes and specks?Men and women crowding fast in the streets...if they are not flashes and specks what are they?[...]

The hurrying tumbling waves and quickbroken crests and slapping;The strata of colored clouds...the long bar of maroontint away solitary by itself...the spread of purity it lies motionless in,The horizon's edge, the flying seacrow, the fragrance of saltmarsh and shoremud;These became part of that child who went forth every day, and who now goes and will always go forth every day,And these become of him or her that peruses them now.